


I can't come down so please come help me out

by summertimestar



Series: The art of falling in love thanks to anxiety [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Panic Attacks, Self-Doubt, Sort Of, a bit of pining, poor baby ryan, shane is a sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 08:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16133795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summertimestar/pseuds/summertimestar
Summary: Ryan Bergara calling. 10:56 pm. Ryan didn't usually call [Shane]. Ryan almost never called him past 8 pm.





	I can't come down so please come help me out

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody! After years of only reading, I decided to write again and here we are!  
> Thanks to Ghoulboyboos for the support and all the help! I truly needed it  
> And thanks to my friend Sunshine for being the best beta ever <3
> 
> cw: there is a panic attack but none of the physical symptoms are described. Thoughts and actions, on the other hand, are but not in great detail. 
> 
> Title from Just Can't Get Enough by The Black Eyed Peas

     Since Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara became friends, Shane got to meet Ryan in a generic way and in a more  _we are real friends and not just work_ _friends_  way, as he liked to think about it. 

     Ryan was sunshine. Ryan was happiness. A good guy that was passionate for films, sports and air (well, Bergara called them ghosts, but Madej couldn't say that completely serious). That was common knowledge. Everyone that knew Ryan Bergara would easily associate him to any of those previous words. 

     Ryan was also a bit more than all that, some things just weren't out in the sun; you had to take your time, listen and ask the right questions. He always wore the same Lakers jersey for those  _“very important, you don’t even understand, Shane”_  games; every Wednesday at lunch he would call his mom; if he had three wishes he would ask for unlimited popcorn, being tall enough to be able to play professional basketball, and the third one he always changed it, depending in what was happening at the moment in his life; he didn’t sing very often but loved to dance. Those were Shane's favorite  _things I know about Ryan Bergara that not everybody knows but I do_.

  Ryan's anxiety was new. Not unexpected, just... new. Ryan would have a need to have everything he was in charge of under control, everything to be perfect. Once inside the process of Unsolved, Shane had just assumed that even though his friend had some  _anxious in a_ _bad way_  tendencies, he just wanted to put out a good product and even more being his idea. 

     But when Ryan felt everything got out of control, Shane didn't see it coming. Saturday night, flirting between dozing off and fully asleep in his couch, a Netflix documentary filling slightly the silence. He wasn't a hundred percent sure if he jolted awake because of that feeling of falling that you sometimes get or because his phone started ringing full volume. 

     Ryan Bergara calling. 10:56 pm. Ryan didn't usually call him. Ryan almost never called him past 8 pm.

     "I can't breathe. Shane, I'm dying. I- I- " Ryan spat before Shane even managed to wake himself up enough to say hello. "I just can't! I'm going to die. My lungs will explode and I will die. Oh god, I'm not wearing decent clothes for dying. Shane, my underwear is not that great and my grandma always said that you should wear clean and decent underwear in case something happens and I think it has a hole? It's not dirty or old but I tore it a bit the other day with my heel as I was in a hurry and I didn't feel like going to the store to get another pair because I didn't think I was going to die. I'm going to reunite with my grandma and she's going to be so mad at me because I didn't listen to her. Oh God, she's going to yell at me in Spanish, everything sounds worse in Spanish. Shane... I can't die and I am dying." 

     "Ryan, for the love of God, breathe." In all that rambling Shane realized what was going on. Ryan was having a panic attack. Something in the back of his mind wanted to laugh at Ryan's speech. He couldn’t breathe but he couldn’t stop talking. “Just breathe with me. I'll count and you will match your breathing with my counting. Okay? You'll inhale in 3, hold it until 7 and you'll exhale at 10. Do you follow me?” 

     Shane heard a breathy –yes- and started counting. He counted to 10 six times. When he sensed everything was calmer, he dared to ask “Ryan, what happened?” Worry soaked his voiced and he felt a bit betrayed by himself as he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want Ryan to get anxious and panicked again. He waited for the answer. It could be from the truth to a ’I don’t want to talk about it’ and Shane was perfectly fine with either, but he needed to hear Ryan talk normal again. He needed Ryan to be okay in a way that he had thought before, but was too complex to even think about in that moment. 

     “It's stupid. You're going to think that I was dumb. I had it coming.” The last four words were whispered with shame, but Shane knew the truth: Ryan believed he had it coming. Like he deserved feeling bad. Before he could reassure his friend that it was okay if he didn’t feel like sharing but he didn’t deserve it, Ryan continued talking “I was checking the script for the next video and it's awful. It’s an awful script, and just now I'm noticing a lot of holes and flaws that I should have noticed when I was working on it. And I know I still have tomorrow to fix it but I've been working all week in this damn script and I just noticed today?” 

     Shane chest felt heavy and he felt bad for Ryan but he didn’t say anything; he knew Ryan wasn’t done. “And I just couldn’t help it.” Ryan continued. “My mind started thinking of every single script that I've done for Unsolved, the idiotic mistakes I've made in them and... maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was in this. I was doing my best but my best is not enough. Not right now and I don’t know if it'll ever be. And the worst part is that this isn't the first time I've felt like this. But lately it's like these thoughts occupy most of my mind and I'm tired Shane. I'm so tired of not being good enough.”

     “Ryan. Oh, Ryan. You are more than just good enough.” he paused for a bit, and with a smile on his lips, he said “Ryan, you are amazing. You work hard to create these awesome videos that people love. You do the research yourself when you have a team doing that too, because you care. You are reviewing the script for the next one on a Saturday night because you are more than good enough! I know this situation is more than me saying it and trying to console you with a 'oh, it's all in your head, don't think like that” that we all know it's stupid. Ryan Steven Bergara, you are so much more than good enough. When I grow up, I want to be just like you” 

     Ryan laughed and Shane felt satisfied with his job as a friend. Ryan thanked him for being there for him. Shane thanked him for trusting him with it. They both knew, unaware of the other's feelings, that it wasn't the moment to confess the more than just a friendship that they felt. 

     But there's always a tomorrow, for sure.


End file.
